A/V Edge Service

The A/V Edge Service is responsible for securely relaying audio and video media among internal, external, and federated contacts. The A/V Edge Service uses the Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE), Simple Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN), and Traversal Using Relay NAT (TURN) methods to enable endpoints to communicate from nearly any network connection with Internet access.

When possible, endpoints attempt to use a peer-to-peer connection for media streams, but when an endpoint is behind a NAT device such as a home router, the A/V Edge role can act as a relay point between the endpoints to facilitate communication. The A/V Edge service uses a combination of HTTPS port 443 and UDP port 3478 to negotiate and provide the media stream.

To support media traffic between internal and external users, an additional service exists on the A/V Edge Server called the A/V Edge Authentication Service. This service is responsible for authenticating media requests from internal users to external contacts. When a user wants to initiate an external A/V conversation, the user is provided with a temporary media token that she uses to authenticate to this service before media is allowed to flow.